Canterlot High

Canterlot High

Ch. 1: Meet the family

“This is it!” the gray earth-pony mare thought as she passed the heavy, slightly rusty iron gates, pulling her luggage behind her, she entered the enormous courtyard of what would be her home for the next three years.

Canterlot High.

She still hadn’t figured out why they had called it Canterlot High, even though it wasn’t an official high school. It was more like a private school for parents who wanted their kids to have a nice education, but didn’t have time to look after them.

Like Octavia’s parents. Melody and Concerto Philharmonica were now “on tour” with the royal orchestra. The black maned filly had to admit that she felt a bit sour about getting left behind.

But then again: she liked to think of herself as an optimist, and as such, she had to look forward.

Which meant looking at the imposing building of her well of knowledge for the next three years.

It really was intimidating, standing before it like this. The building had once been home to a noble or royal, for It was more of a castle than it was a schoolhouse; three stories tall, with towers, (wide enough to contain more classrooms, she assumed) in each corner.

The whole building was build of big, cold stone bricks of the color of Octavia’s coat, but the smart mare had read up on the history of the school, and knew, that the insides had been renovated about five years ago and were now warm, cozy and most of all, armored to the teeth with the most modern forms of educational equipment ponykind could offer.

She sighed, turning her head and her thoughts away from the building in front of her, until she came to face the mansion on the far right end of the campus. Or, at least what was visible of it.

A small cobblestone road leads through a little forest and to a villa of not quite as imposing size as the school itself, but still of considerable measurements.

One of three school dormitories. The biggest one to be precise. The only one right on campus and closest to the school, and… by far the most expensive one.

Octavia didn’t have to worry about that. It wasn’t like her parents were poor. And since they didn’t have to pay the school fee, because Octavia (clever and bright as she was) had been offered a scholarship by the director of the school himself. Yeah, they just wanted the best for their daughter while they couldn’t take care of her themselves.

She picked up her luggage (you can’t imagine how hard pulling luggage is as an earth pony), which she had dropped to admire her temporary home, and made her way over to the partially hidden villa.

She was greeted in front of the dormitory by a unicorn mare in her mid-thirties. She had a light pink coat and a copper reddish mane. Her cutie mark was apparently a heart, of a just slightly darker pink than her coat. Her eyes were, not surprisingly, of a sweet, dark pink hue, but her gaze was very caring and the gray mare felt comforted just being looked at by her.

“Ah! You must be Octavia. We have been eagerly waiting for you. The whole school staff hopes that at least one pony can pull up the marks of the good for nothing rascals that usually attend to this school.” She smiled. “Ah come on Carry! Don’t make us look bad in front of the cute new girl before we had a chance to meet her!” came a male voice from above, startling the unicorn and the earth pony alike.

With a loud thud a young, solid blue Pegasus with a brown mane and sparkling dark brown eyes landed next to the adult mare, whose name was Carry, Octavia assumed.

A second later Octavia was startled a second time, as just next to the blue Pegasus a bright white light flashed, and another unicorn appeared out of thin air. This colt had a pristine white coat, and hair in perfect contrast, for it was the darkest black Octavia had ever seen. His eyes were more of a dark amber color. She also noticed a black and white checkered wrist band on his right front hoof.

He instantly turned to the blue Pegasus to his left. “Blue! How many damn times do I have to tell you not to jump off the building and just leave me up there! Seriously, you can be such a dick sometimes!”

Then the white unicorn’s gaze turned from the Pegasus, Blue apparently, to a now facehoofing Carry and rested finally on Octavia. “Who are you?”

“My name is Octavia.” She answered politely. “I’m new at the school.”

The unicorn turned back to Carry (who had finally managed to remove her hoof from her face) and asked in a confused tone “Didn’t the new ones arrive yesterday?”

The pink mare gave the other unicorn a slightly annoyed look, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Yes. She’s late. We have a few late ones every year.” She explained slowly, as if to a toddler. She looked back at the new girl and addressed her directly again. “Well, as I wanted to say before I got interrupted; welcome to Canterlot High. My name is Caring Heart, Carry for short. And these two are two of the worst, before mentioned, good for nothing rascals.”

A “Hey!” of objection from the unicorn, and a “She’s right, ya know?” from the Pegasus.

“Anyways,” Carry went on pointing at the unicorn colt “This surprisingly ineloquent fellow is Two Tone (another “Hey” of objection) and this featherbrain here is Blue Print.” The Pegasus just grinned, which was surprisingly attractive, and said “Nice to meet ya.”

He was quite handsome, Octavia had to admit.

Something about him just radiated confidence and security… and he was rather well toned.

Carry noticed her new student was looking closely at the blue Pegasus, who was now arguing with his unicorn friend about something she hadn’t quite caught. “He’s taken.” She whispered in her ear, smiling. Octavia blushed at her staring being exposed.

“Anyways,” Carry turned back to the two colts. Blue had Two in a headlock by now, while the latter tried to poke the Pegasus’ throat with his horn. The caretaker facehoofed again. “Guys? Could you stop for a moment, please?” They stopped. Two still in headlock. “Ok, now Blue, I would love it if you could help me get the mail from the post office. I know you don’t have anything better to do anyways. While we’re gone, Two could you show miss Octavia here around the dorm please?”

“Sure thing Carry.” Said the unicorn. The Pegasus wasn’t quite as happy. “Aww. Why can’t I show the new girl around?” he whined.

“Because you’re too flirty.” Carry simply stated. “Now come along.” With that, she started to walk away. Blue finally released Two from his headlock and followed the pink unicorn.

Octavia felt a bit stunned at how friendly teacher and students behaved with each other here.

“Ok Octavia, as you’ve heard, I’m Two Tone, second year student at Canterlot High. Sorry if I my first greeting came over a bit rudely, I was just surprised that I hadn’t seen you here yet. I tend to remember names and faces of cute mares.” He said smiling. Octavia blushed.

“Now how about we start that tour through the dorm? Here, let me take that.” He said and levitated all of Octavia’s belonging in his pristine white magic aura.

They started to climb the stairs up to the villa’s main entry, when he said: “Oh, and one more thing: Don’t fall for Blue. Seriously, just don’t. He might be taken now, but if he splits up, just if, I’m not saying that’s gonna happen anytime soon, battle royal will break out. And in the end I’ll be the one who has to listen to his whining about how he can’t decide, because five mares want to date him at the same time. Seriously, every other colt at the school wishes he had his problems.”

Octavia giggled at the mental image and because she thought he was joking. A look at Two’s face proved her otherwise. “Five mares? Really?” she questioned, while they entered the main hall of the big dormitory villa. “At least five.” Two returned dead serious with a frown.

Octavia gasped at the sight before her eyes. The mansion was the classic stereotype of a villa, like you saw them in sappy movies. From the main hall, four doors, two at each side lead to other rooms, while a corridor lead further into the house, where, Octavia guessed rightly, the dining hall was. To both sides of the corridor a flight of stairs went to the upper stories of the house.

“Well…” Two Tone began. “Welcome to the Casa di… actually we haven’t given the villa any name yet. But we live here, so the general term for it at school is “Nuthouse”.” Again Octavia had no idea if he was serious or joking.

“Now let’s get this guided tour started!” He said as he started leading her around.

**** 30min later *****

Octavia and her guide now stood on the top floor of the villa. From here, only two doors lead to other rooms and stairs lead to the attic. Behind one of the doors lay the villas own little bar, complete with pool-table and table kickers for the students’ entertainment. The other door…

“So, and finally your room.” Two announced pompously; “The penthouse suite. It’s usually reserved for the most promising student and one of the weaker students. The teachers hope that the better of the two students can help the other out and the overall grade of the school rises. I hope you will get along well with your roommate. I think she’s cool, but I’m not sure you two share many common interests…” he said thoughtfully.

“Well. This is where I leave you to yourself to do your unpacking and get to know your roommate. You will be sharing this room for at least a year after all, maybe three.” And with that he turned to walk back down the stairs again.

“Two?” Octavia called him back.

“Hm?” he asked. He really was quite ineloquent at times.

She motioned a hoof to her belongings, still in the grip of his magic, and slowly levitating behind him as he walked away.

“Oh right, sorry. Forgot about those. Sometimes random things just slip my mind...” He offered a sheepish grin as he put everything down next to the door, neatly stacked.

As he walked back down, Octavia steadied herself, opened the wooden door and entered what would be her room for the foreseeable future.

The room was big. That was the first thing she noticed. It had its own little kitchen part to her left, behind a counter, the wall pointing in direction of the school was just one big window, with a framed door in the middle, which lead out on a nice little balcony. At the opposite wall, to Octavia’s right and at the back wall, stood two beds, slightly apart, bedding made and ready to sleep on them.

The gray mare noticed all that, and more importantly one more thing.

The room was already a total mess.

Open cases everywhere. Cloths, mainly hoodies, caps and beanies were littered all across the room floor. But what was worth were the cables that connected all sorts of musical instruments with all possible types of electrical equipment.

Octavia just stood there, mouth agape.

Then, the unicorn mare sitting at one of the two tables at the far right side of the room (on one of them stood one of these fancy new computers, taking away most of the space, on the other, Octavia was pretty sure it had been intended to be hers for work, stood DJ equipment and a turntable.), finally noticed the cellists presence and turned around.

When her eyes fell on the cute grey cellist, she smiled, put down her headset (from even Octavia at the far end of the room could hear music) and walked over to greet he.

If asked, Octavia would have described her new roommate as what was commonly referred to as “cool”. Her coat was just as white as Two Tone’s but compared to his, admittedly, rather boring combination of colors, her mane was sparkling. The messy unkempt but spiky nest on her head, which Octavia’s mother would have rather cut off completely, than be seen with, was of electric blue colors in two shades.

Even though, Octavia didn’t usually look at other ponies’ cutie marks, her eyes were drawn to the white unicorn’s flank as she walked over to her. It was a black double eight note.

Her roommate’s eyes were hidden away by a pair of strangely formed purple sunglasses, but Octavia was sure she looked directly at her.

But above all, she was cute.

Octavia mentally slapped herself, suppressed a blush and wondered where that thought had come from.

Then the white mare held out a hoof to greet her.

“Hi. The name’s Vinyl. Vinyl Scratch.”

Author’s notes:

Soooo... where was I going with this again?

Oh yeah: The story. Well, what can I say, I was kinda out of ideas, so I came up with something that needs no ideas! Namely: my own life (avoiding writer’s block since 1993).

Greatly inspired by DawnFade’s “University Days (and Nights. That’s not clop, that’s romance.)”, which is one of the best stories on Fimficion.net, in my opinion. Read it.

Inspired doesn’t mean copied though, and apart from happening at school and being a VinylXTavi story it doesn’t have much in common. Other than that, it’s mainly based on own experience (Well, I can’t do magic and my OC is about 134.6% cooler than I am, but you get the point).

Names and personality of the ponies are mostly based on real people, so if you notice yourself in this story, sue me. And call me (maybe). Didn’t know you were a brony. Damn that would be awesome.

Two Tone: That would be me. Oblivious, socially awkward, lazy and quite stupid at times.

Blue Print: My best friend. We’re like JD & Turk. Seriously (I’m JD).

Carry: Mash up of my favorite teachers, back when I had been at that awesome school I’m calling “Canterlot High” in this story. The name it has in real life doesn’t fit it either, so I thought a name that doesn’t fit the story, fits. That makes sense, right?

All being said, I really^4 enjoy writing this! It’s like psychological therapy, which I dearly need… You know, for being crazy and shit.

PS: Have mercy on my grammar. I’m trying really hard. ;_;

PPS: We all know who owns MLP:FIM! Why is everyone writing that in theirs stories?

…longest A/N I’ve written so far, and hopefully forever.

-Eli